They Steal Children
by Mai Ascot
Summary: Petunia Dursley's reflections on her nephew, her sister, that crackpot old fool and what the wizards do when magical children reach eleven years old. No pairings or slash. Oneshot. Rated K .


They Steal Children

A/N: Yet another oneshot to bribe my muse back into place. I thought about Petunia long and hard and tried to suss out her character. If any of you who have been paying attention to my recent activity, you'll know that I'm trying to give all the -redeemable- baddies a good side.

I refuse to do: Vernon, Snape and the lesser Death Eaters.

This is mad, spoilers for virtually all (if not all) the books in one way or another. Bad time jumps, POV changes and other stuff that I might make up just for the hell of it. Flames accepted as long as they're big enough to roast marshmallows on and have constructive criticism inside.

If there really is nothing good to say, listen to the ol' saying "If you've got nothing good to say-... don't say anything." Golden advice that.

Disclaimer: I own nothing, blah de blah, I really should just tell you straight: I do not and sadly never will ( ) own Harry Potter. JK Rowling does. (Lucky woman...)

**-()-**

They steal children, you know.

That's what Petunia Dursley (nee Evans) thought after Dudley shouted "Look! Look! Harry's got a letter!" snatching it out of her nephew's hands.

"Who'd be writing to _you_?" Vernon chortled, but as he saw the seal his face changed colour faster than a traffic light. She wasn't paying attention.

Her mind was trapped in the past, twenty years before.

"_Mum! Dad! I've got the letter! Like Sev said!" Petunia turned her rather long neck round and looked at her little sister. Lily was the beauty, that much was obvious. Red hair, green eyes, cute gap between her front teeth. Petunia was... Petunia. She absolutely refused to call herself ugly._

"_It's my Hogwarts letter!"_

"I WANT MY LETTER!" her nephew's temper jarred Petunia beck into reality. _Lily's_temper, her head reminded her.

**-()-**

"_Freak!" _

She had spat on her grave. _Lily's_grave. Called her a freak.

You shouldn't disrespect the dead.

But _Lily, Lily_ wasn't dead.

She never died.

Petunia had to see her every single god-awful day since Halloween 1981, every moment she was in the company of Harry. Yes, she did know his name.

She couldn't use it because _she _had given it to him. She had always said: _If I have a girl I'll call her Rose and continue with the flowers tradition, and if it's a boy I'll call him Harry, because it's one of those nice names that rolls off the tongue. What'll you call your children Tuney?_

She had always replied her children wouldn't have common names like Rose and Harry. She'd have something refined and uncommon, to be different from Lily.

Lily, watching her through her son's eyes. Harry, a name that rolled off one's tongue.

Petunia never wanted to admit Harry Potter sound better than Dudley Dursley, even to herself, otherwise she would've lost again, to Lily.

Lily, who won the beauty, the brains, the compassion, the _magic, _the grace, and of course she won the "who's-got-the-better-spawn" competition as well.

It wasn't _fair._

Sometimes she swore she could hear Lily, comforting her baby in the closet underneath where she and Vernon slept. Yes it was child abuse, but she couldn't bear to look one moment longer at him than she had to, and it was Vernon's idea. All of it, was Vernon's idea. At least, that's what she told herself.

Lily, singing that melody she'd heard one day in school, the old lullaby.

"_Hushaby, baby, on the tree top..,_

_When the wind blows the cradle will rock..,_

_When the bow breaks, _

_The cradle shall fall,_

_Down shall come baby, cradle and all."_

Sometimes Petunia prayed that Lily would come and sing her the same song, come and comfort her and tell her she forgave her for all the _terrible, god-awful, terrible _things she had done to her little boy, and let her tell her how very sorry she was.

Lily never came.

**-()-**

Petunia stuck her hand in yet another box in the attic, and finally her hand closed around that scrap of paper Vernon thought he'd never see again after he ripped it up. But Petunia had collected all the pieces up and stuck them together carefully, making sure not to mutilate and word or miss a single syllable.

Not as good as Lily could've done, with her wand, but still pretty good.

_Mr & Mrs Dursley,_

_It is my sad duty to inform you that Mrs Petunia Dursley's (nee Evans) sister, Lily Potter (nee Evans) was found dead along with her husband James Potter in their home in Godric's Hollow in Wales, killed by the most evil dark wizard of our time, Lord Voldemort, by the killing curse (also known as the Avada Kedavra)._

_The wizarding world, along with yourselves, is in mourning for these brilliant witch and wizard, but at the same time rejoicing for Harry Potter defeated Lord Voldemort by reflecting his own killing curse back at him through the power of love, as Lily sacrificed herself to save Harry, awakening an ancient magic._

_Lily and James were fighters to the end, but they left behind baby Harry, who's cradle you have retrieved this letter from. _

_You, and you alone, are his sole living relatives and due to the fact that Petunia's blood runs in Harry's veins, we were able to construct blood wards around your house, to protect you from any vengeful members of Voldemort's group of, to muggle terms, "terrorists"._

_Please look after your nephew and treat him as your own. When he is eleven he shall get his Hogwarts letter and shall study magic._

_Sincerley,_

_Albus Wulfric Percival Brian Dumbledore_

_Order of Merlin: First Class, Chief Mugwump, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizard etc._

Petunia had thrown it down so that Vernon could read it, then ran up to her room and wept, holding Harry close to her until he woke, giving her the first glimpse of his eyes.

Her eyes.

_Lily's _eyes.

She had dropped him out of horror, her tears still streaming down her face.

She hadn't held him close to her since, always at arms length.

Trying not to touch him and see the sadness in _Lily's _eyes, the sadness of a dog kicked one too many times.

**-()-**

Her nephew was gone.

The giant had taken him, drawn him in with tales of magic and splendour and flying and that _damned _school. There was no mention of the deaths and the grief and the hopeless never ending fighting between Dark and Light, Good and Bad.

She remembered Platform 9 and ¾ very well.

She knew how to get in and had seen the Scarlet Train and all the magic fizzling in the air.

She had loved it.

_Lily _had loved it more.

So she refused to go, telling Vernon where to take him.

When Vernon got back in the car they had a silent agreement not to speak of him again until next summer when they went to pick him up.

She heard her own accusations ringing in her ears, terrified that they were true. She couldn't lose him too, not Harry too.

_They Steal Children You Know._

**-()-**

It was seven years later.

Had it really been seven years?

She had seen him and Dudley grow, from boys into men.

Now they were leaving.

Privet Drive was to be no more than a memory, and he too was soon to be simply a memory, something to tell the grandkids, something to be eradicated from their lives.

But she wanted him to come with them.

She couldn't bear not to see Lily in his eyes, to see his messy black hair in the morning and his cheeky smile at night.

She ended up embracing Dudley, imagining he was Harry with his thin body and strong arms and hard chest, instead of Dudley, her portly son. Though he was slimming down.

Vernon left.

Hestia left.

Dedalus left.

Dudley left.

It was just her and him, in the living room of the place they used to call home.

He stared at her, asking her _Why aren't you already gone?_

She opened her mouth, and closed it again. Realising he had been well and truly stolen. He loved that school and that world and probably a girl as well. But she wouldn't know, because he would never talk to _her, _of all people about that wonderful place.

If only he could see it without his rose-tinted glasses.

_It doesn't just steal children, _she amended in her mind as she walked out the door towards the car, her mind filling with worry for her nephew.

_It steals grown women as well._


End file.
